Media Party? Three journalists fight over Bob Rae's old seat, but politics not always pretty for pundits

Three journalists vying for party nominations in the coming Toronto-Centre federal byelection will continue a trend of journalists jumping from news duties into the political arena.

Moving to the other side of the microphone: Some Canadian politicians who dabbled in journalism

Judy LaMarsh – LaMarsh, who served as minister of national health and welfare under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, was a columnist for the Toronto Star and hosted radio and television shows for a number of stations across the country, including the CBC.

Joan Fraser – Liberal Sen. Joan Fraser has worked as a reporter and as the editor of the Montreal Gazette, and as a reporter for the Financial Times of Canada. She won two national newspaper awards.

Bernard Drainville – Quebec’s minister for democratic institutions and active citizenship has worked as a journalist for Radio-Canada, serving as a parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa and a Latin American news correspondent.

Pierre Duchesne – Quebec’s minister for higher education, research, science and technology holds a degree in journalism and has worked as reporter for both English and French media. He was an investigative reporter with Radio-Canada television and teaches television journalism at Laval University.

Christine St. Pierre – The Quebec minister responsible for the Charter of the French language is a former Radio-Canada television reporter.

Michaelle Jean – Canada’s former governor general used to anchor for CBC programs and won awards for her reporting, including the Amnesty International Canada Journalism Award.

Jim Munson – Now a senator, Munson joined CTV as a journalist in 1979. He was CTV correspondent in Ottawa, London and Beijing. He was named to the Senate in 2002.

Danielle Smith – The leader of Alberta’s Wildrose party was an editorial writer and columnist for the Calgary Herald and hosted the Global Sunday television current affairs talk show program.

Ralph Klein – Alberta’s former premier was a broadcast reporter for Calgary radio and television station CFCN, covering weather and eventually city council.

Christy Clark – Clark, now British Columbia premier, hosted a weekday show on CKNW 980 AM in Vancouver from 2007 to 2010, and wrote a newspaper column during the 2005 provincial election.

Journalist, author and Toronto Star columnist Linda McQuaig announced this week she would seek the NDP nomination in Toronto Centre, the riding vacated by former Liberal leader Bob Rae last month. She’s competing for the spot against Jennifer Hollett, a former broadcast journalist who has worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and CTV.

Whoever comes out on top in the nomination race could well be facing off against Chrystia Freeland, former deputy editor of the Globe and Mail, who hopes to represent the Liberals in the downtown Toronto riding. The byelection date hasn’t been set yet.

What happens when reporters switch sides at the microphone? Is it a good thing for Canadian politics — and policy — or a societal gamble? Should the media focus on the message rather than meddle in the nation’s business?

Big political names, including former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and former environment minister Peter Kent, have spent parts of their careers as journalists before seeking elected office. Among politicians who haven’t faced election — that is, senators — count former journalists Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin.

At a provincial level, former Quebec premier and Parti Quebecois founder Rene Levesque was a respected war correspondent and television host. Ralph Klein, Alberta’s colourful former premier who passed away this spring, worked as a radio and television broadcaster until he left the media realm in 1980 to become mayor of Calgary.

Jonathan Rose, a political scientist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., says that, in theory, journalists can make good politicians. They understand the complexities of policy, are good communicators and tend to have a recognized and trusted public persona. In practice, this doesn’t always pan out.

“Duffy is an example of none of that working,” Rose said. “You’d expect a journalist to be able to manage crises better than he has because they’re used to feeding the media and they’re used to understanding the needs of the media.

Duffy was not able to do it. His failure is not because he was a journalist, it’s in spite of him being a journalist.”

But despite Duffy landing himself squarely in a well-publicized expense scandal, journalists remain desirable political candidates.

“Anyone who’s attentive and really informed about politics is well-placed to be a good politician,” said Laura Stephenson, a political scientist at University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. “In general, the kind of attention journalists pay to certain issues would give them a leg up in some senses and, of course, they’re also quite in tune with what the public is looking for.”

Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Kent, who spent four decades as a radio and television reporter before entering the political fray, said his years reporting on public policy from a variety of angles made him familiar with the political process and helped him understand issues pertinent to his roles as minister of state of foreign affairs for the Americas and, more recently, as minister of the environment.

“Journalists are as qualified as folks from any other walk of life to go into politics,” Kent said. “The nature of the craft, of journalism, is engagement with public policy on a daily basis.”

But it’s not always easy for a journalist to move to the other side of the microphone. Not only did Kent encounter “shock” and “dismay” from his journalism colleagues when he announced his decision to enter politics, he also had to adjust to a position where he was expected to toe a party line.

“The challenge that journalists have — and this is true of lawyers and doctors and just about every other profession that practises and then goes into politics — is the willingness to be a team player, to subject oneself to party discipline and to engage in the public policy situation,” Kent said.

“Effective government is a disciplined government,” he said. “That does go against the grain for a lot of journalists who tend to be independent minds.”